There has been known a technique of communicably connecting a multifunction peripheral (MFP) to a server over a communications network and thereby controlling the function of the MFP from the server (see, for example, Patent Literatures 1 through 4). This technique typically causes an application (MFP native application) operating on the MFP and an application operating on the server to control the operation of the MFP in association with each other.
There is also a technique of, in order to allow a user to input data such as a text at a MFP including no hardware keyboard, displaying a virtual keyboard (software keyboard) in a display section of the MFP so that the user can operate the virtual keyboard to input data.
The above virtual keyboard is, however, typically pre-installed in the MFP. As such, although the display style is uniform among respective display screens for application programs on the MFP (for example, among respective screens for execution of jobs such as copying and scanning), the above technique fails to make it possible to (i) change the design or layout of the virtual keyboard for each input item, input mode (for example, for full-width kana characters or alphanumeric characters), or application program, or (ii) customize the virtual keyboard for each user.
To solve the above problem, Patent Literature 5 discloses a technique of, in order to enable customization according to a user's needs and detailed data input for each input field, storing in advance (i) an input field and (ii) a virtual keyboard for use in data input to the input field in association with each other so that such data input is performed with use of the virtual keyboard associated with the input field.